Free Web NovelThe library at Huacheng Institute of Technology, having been renovated twice and expanded four or five times over the school's several decades of history, was quite large, and even with many students studying inside on weekdays, it still felt a bit deserted.
However, once it was exam month, the academic elites who usually resided here, along with various last-minute crammers, all gathered, making even the large area and numerous study tables and chairs seem insufficient, leading to overcrowding.
It was as if only by studying in the library could one receive the blessing of the "God of Exams" and successfully pass.
When Lu Yibei arrived in front of the library entrance and saw the continuous stream of students coming and going, she felt very satisfied.
Just as she had thought, during exam month, the library was unusually crowded, making it indeed a good place to meet the so-called Void from the Monster Story Chat Group.
Entering the library entrance, Lu Yibei took out her campus card, passed the gate guard, and began searching for a seat.
However, with a single glance, the vast and bright library was densely packed with people everywhere.
She had long anticipated this situation and was not anxious. She calmly took out her phone, opened a certain chat app, found the account that couldn't be removed from her friend list even after reporting, blocking, or deleting, and sent a message.
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "I've arrived at the school library. When is your Void coming?"
She waited for over ten seconds.
One Hundred and Two-Thirds Cats: "Void said to meet exactly at twelve noon, on time."
After reading Miao Xiaoqi's reply, Lu Yibei glanced at the clock on her phone.
The time was seven past ten in the morning, nearly two hours until the meeting time.
...
Wandering around the vast library, after more than ten minutes, Lu Yibei finally found a few empty seats in a corner on the top floor of the library.
Four or five tables were surrounded by large sections of book shelf, making the area secluded and quiet, perfect for peaceful study.
Usually, such spots are very popular, with stacks of books piled high on the tables, occupied for long periods, but this area was empty.
Only the seat near the aisle was occupied by a slender girl. The innermost table was even covered in dust, seemingly untouched for a long time.
Why was no one sitting there?
Lu Yibei frowned slightly and walked forward, then saw the yellowed sticky note on the table.
【Someone is here】
Just as Lu Yibei was staring blankly at the table, her shoulder was suddenly patted by someone.
Turning her head, she saw the small-figured girl wearing round-rimmed glasses and braided pigtails.
Perhaps the stress of final exams had exhausted her, as she looked somewhat gloomy overall.
"Classmate, you're a freshman, right? I advise you not to sit here. It's unlucky. Sitting anywhere else is fine."
Have I done too few unlucky things? I really care about adding this one, so I'm out of here!
Lu Yibei thought, and before leaving, she subconsciously asked, "How is it unlucky?"
The girl glanced suspiciously at the sticky note on the table, leaned closer, and lowered her voice.
"The sticky note on this table belongs to a Senior. She was murdered the night she left the sticky note. It's said that her ghost occasionally comes here and sits in that spot..."
"..."
As Lu Yibei listened, her gaze drifted involuntarily towards the empty seat, and she suddenly had a different feeling.
It was as if the sticky note was a talisman with eerie power, sealing the seat and emitting a chilling aura.
Vaguely, it seemed like an invisible person was sitting there, casting a gloomy and malicious gaze towards this side.
"I heard that anyone who has sat at that table has either gotten injured or sick, or even had their boyfriend cheat on them with a Senior. Not a single person has had a good outcome, so after a while, no one dared to sit there."
"Some students who work part-time organizing books in the library have seen that girl after the library closes and the lights are turned off. She was sitting there covered in blood, with nothing above her neck..."
Hearing this, Lu Yibei frowned slightly and interrupted, "Senior, the girl you're talking about, wasn't she murdered on Four Gate Main Street?"
Hearing this, the girl was clearly taken aback and whispered, "You know?"
"Yes, I've heard of it," Lu Yibei replied expressionlessly. Then, she thanked the girl and found an empty seat to sit down.
Studying makes people happy.
As a good young person who wanted to learn everything, Lu Yibei had originally planned to use this hour or so to properly review the coursework she had fallen behind on due to various force majeure factors. However, after she sat down and opened her books, she couldn't focus on reading at all.
Her gaze kept uncontrollably drifting towards the table where the Headless Senior had left behind the urban legend legend, deep in thought.
Although she hadn't interacted much with the Headless Senior, she had noticed that she was a shy Miss, running away at the slightest disagreement, and she was deeply attached to this school.
She was definitely not the type of urban legend that would casually bring misfortune to younger students. Since she had done that, there must have been something that made her unhappy.
What exactly was the reason that made her choose to do that?
Lu Yibei continued to review absentmindedly while thinking intermittently, and before she knew it, over an hour had passed.
When she came back to her senses and looked at her phone, the time had already reached eleven forty-five. Lu Yibei quickly tidied up her desk.
Just as she was preparing to leave, she glanced at the time on her phone again and froze in place.
11:55?
Lu Yibei was certain that the time she had just spent tidying her desk was absolutely no more than one minute.
But the time on her phone, which seemed to have been suddenly sped up by some mysterious force, gave her a sense of temporal distortion, as if ten minutes had been stolen from her.
Just the time it took to put two books and a phone charger into her backpack, ten minutes had actually passed?
How was this possible!
Lu Yibei felt that something was starting to go wrong. She quickly put on her backpack and walked towards the crowded area. In a daze, it was as if a small figure representing her appeared in her mind, with -1s, -1s, -1s constantly flashing above its head...
The library was filled with rows of book shelf, which blocked the light, casting shadows in the corners and crevices. Many books were placed on the book shelf, arranged tightly with small gaps, through which figures could occasionally be seen passing behind the book shelf.
As Lu Yibei walked between the book shelf, a strange thought inexplicably popped into her mind.
In movies, there's often a scene where the female protagonist takes a book from a book shelf and sees the male protagonist's smiling face behind the book shelf.
But what if it wasn't the male protagonist hidden on the other side of the book shelf, but a urban legend secretly observing humans?
Casually taking a book from the book shelf, would a pale, eerie face suddenly intrude into view? freewёbnoνel.com
Or a bloody hand, gripping a fruit knife, stabbing out the moment you take down the book, plunging into your forehead?
Or something even more terrifying, bizarre, and indescribable, suddenly flying out from the gaps in the book shelf and pouncing on you?
Lu Yibei's mind raced with chaotic thoughts, feeling uneasy. She quickened her pace and soon passed through the rows of book shelf, arriving at the open area on the top floor of the library.
Many tables and chairs were placed here, occupied by numerous students engrossed in studying. The faint sounds of footsteps, turning pages, quiet discussions, and the ticking of the clock intermittently reached her ears.
Seeing this, Lu Yibei's tense nerves immediately relaxed.
This was why she liked studying; living people ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ who studied seriously were always so friendly and lovely!
Amidst the vast army of cramming students, she found a corner, sat cross-legged against a stone pillar, pretended to take out her textbook from her backpack, spread it on her lap, and kept one hand inside her backpack, ready to draw her knife at any moment. Then, she waited quietly.
The time was 11:56, four minutes until the agreed meeting time.
Time passed second by second.
A very pretty and stylishly dressed girl walked towards her, her eyes red and her eye makeup smudged, looking like she had just cried.
Could it be her?
Lu Yibei glanced at her phone; it was still 11:56. Not even a minute had passed.
The girl passed by Lu Yibei, walking away as if she hadn't seen her.
When the time on Lu Yibei's phone ticked to 11:57, her phone suddenly buzzed twice. She flinched slightly and saw that it was a message from Jiang Li, asking her to come to her office later for something important.
Lu Yibei simply replied with "Okay," then put down her phone and continued to wait.
Soon, a male student walked towards her.
The male student was tall and strongly built, with somewhat long and messy hair. He wore black-rimmed glasses, the lenses reflecting light so his eyes couldn't be seen, and also a mask, hiding his face.
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The boy walked over and squatted beside Lu Yibei. Lu Yibei quickly raised her head and stared at his face.
It was a very dark face, with large eyes, and the pupils were suspended in the center, surrounded by scary whites of the eyes.
"Hey, buddy, can I discuss something with you?" the boy said in a low, hoarse voice, as if he had a bad cold.
Lu Yibei looked at the boy in confusion and tentatively asked, "Are you?"
"Haha, we don't know each other. I just saw that your phone model is the same as mine and wanted to ask if you have a charger and if I could borrow it?"
Lu Yibei, "..."
"Yes, fifty yuan an hour. Use it or not as you please."
The boy was stunned for a moment, a look of disgust and contempt flashed in his eyes. He got up, coughed softly, and walked away.
Lu Yibei withdrew her gaze from the boy, looked at her phone, 11:59!
Just 1 minute left!
She immediately became nervous, her eyes scanning back and forth, looking around at the fat man with a face full of acne, the young couple whispering to each other, the cleaner bending down to sort the trash can...
With so many people, who exactly is the Void of the Monster Story Chat Group?
If it doesn't disguise itself as a human, can it really appear before me under the watchful eyes of so many people?
She suddenly had a strange feeling, as if this last minute was passing exceptionally slowly, as if it had been stretched out countless times.
She kept looking at the time on her phone screen, looking more than ten or twenty times in a row, and the time remained at 11:59.
At the moment the time jumped to 12:00, Lu Yibei held her breath, and the surroundings suddenly fell silent.
It was a deathly silence, even a library couldn't be that quiet.
The footsteps, the sound of turning pages, the low murmurs, and the ticking of the clock that should have been present in the library all disappeared, as if the whole world was left with only her.
She was stunned for a moment, then raised her head and saw a bizarre scene.
In the library, everyone was looking down at their phones, either frowning in thought, or smiling, or looking gloomy... but everyone was staring intently at their phones, not making a sound, as if their souls had been sucked away by the palm-sized screens.
Just as Lu Yibei was staring blankly at the motionless people, a strange sensation suddenly came from the back of her hand.
The temperature was cold like some kind of metal, but it had the soft body of a mollusk, very small and light, wriggling and crawling across the back of her hand, causing goosebumps to rise.
That feeling was like a small bug crawling across the back of her hand.
There's a bug!
Lu Yibei's brain made this judgment, and her body quickly reacted.
She jumped up from the ground, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw something roll off the back of her hand onto the ground. She immediately stepped on it.
"Slap—Slap—Slap—!"
She stomped three times, and as the soft sounds of her shoe soles hitting the ground echoed, the deathly silent library suddenly returned to normal.
Various fragmented, familiar sounds, like a tide, surged from all directions and poured into Lu Yibei's ears.
She looked around, and the people who had been acting strangely just now were doing their own things as if nothing had happened.
Lu Yibei frowned, took out her phone, and glanced at it.
12:03, three minutes had passed since the agreed meeting time.
Was it late?
Or did it already appear, but I didn't notice?
Could it be...
Lu Yibei suddenly seemed to remember something. She abruptly lowered her head, moved her foot, and then her face changed slightly.
She was certain that she had indeed stepped on a bug just now, but there was no sticky liquid mixed with broken limbs under her foot, only a clump of black ash that looked somewhat like crushed graphite.
"This..."
Did I... could it be... is it possible...
As she was thinking, her phone suddenly vibrated. She took out her phone and looked at it. It was a message from Miao Xiaoqi.
One Hundred and Two-Thirds Cats: "What's wrong with you? Our Void personally went to see you, and you actually killed the Void's clone?"
Lu Yibei, "..."
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "Did your Void mean... it's a bug?"
One Hundred and Two-Thirds Cats: "Damn it! By your tone, you really killed it?"
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "I thought at least a 'person' would come, I didn't expect... Sorry! 【Shiba Inu wry smile emoji】"
One Hundred and Two-Thirds Cats: "If apologizing was useful, what would we need police for? 【Little policewoman emoji】"
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "I'm sorry! At worst, I won't report you today?"
Waited for dozens of seconds.
One Hundred and Two-Thirds Cats: "You weren't supposed to report me in the first place! 【Angry cat emoji】 Fine, fine, our Void said you can find a place with a computer in the library, and it will create another clone to meet you."
Computer? Lu Yibei frowned slightly, and the image of the computer used for searching book information in a corner of the library flashed in her mind. She immediately put away her phone and walked quickly towards that direction.
Upon reaching the computer, she pretended to type a random book title in the search bar, browsing while anxiously waiting.
The next moment, the feeling of time slowing down appeared again.
Lu Yibei glanced at the desks in the distance. As expected, the people in those seats were all buried in their phones, in a state of deathly silence.
She withdrew her gaze and looked at the computer screen in front of her.
The screen was frozen, turning blue, but there was no text on it, only a white dot like a period in the center of the screen.
Immediately after, that white dot seemed to be alive, constantly growing and expanding, quickly occupying more than half of the screen.
It looked like an egg? Lu Yibei frowned slightly. This image reminded her of the black and white electronic pet games she played as a child.
As she was thinking, the egg made of pixels hatched, and a pale little bug crawled out of it, crawled around the edge of the screen a few times, then suddenly raised its body and crashed towards the outside of the screen...
In an instant, the cold, hard display screen was like the surface of water rippled by a stone, sending out layers of ripples. Bright red, green, and blue light dots scattered and splashed, and a piercing electric current sound kept ringing in her ears. A pale little bug flew out of the screen and fell onto the desktop with a "plop" sound.
It was a plump, pale bug with a metallic sheen to its skin, about the size of an index finger. It had a pair of small eyes like green beans on its head and a small curved mouth made of pixels. Its whole face looked like a smiling emoji.
Looking at the small bug, Lu Yibei immediately became nervous.
She felt a very terrifying Spiritual Energy fluctuation from the small bug. Although it wasn't strong, the quantity was huge, as if it was in the distant, ethereal Void.
Perhaps this was because it was only its clone? Lu Yibei thought.
As she was thinking, the small bug spoke.
"Hello, dear group member Wang Bu Liu Xing, companion who inherited the Power of the ancient god Nvba and the Demoness Lilim. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Due to some reasons that are temporarily inconvenient to tell you, my main body cannot come in person and can only meet you with a clone. I feel extremely sorry for this."
Listening to the voice coming from the small bug, which was similar to a virtual singer and based on a speech synthesis engine, Lu Yibei was stunned for a moment before responding, "Uh, I'm also very sorry, I just killed your clone..."
"It's okay, creating a clone doesn't cost much Spiritual Energy," the small bug said. "I heard Miao Xiaoqi say that you don't trust us very much? You want to form an alliance contract with our members?"
"Uh, yes..."
"Which stupid little brat gave you such an idiotic suggestion? Are her family members okay? I really want to beep—her beep—beep—!"
Lu Yibei, "???"
"Cough cough, sorry, because my language database is built on vocabulary collected from online information, sometimes it might... you know?"
"I know, I know..." Lu Yibei nodded and said weakly, "But, without forming an alliance contract, I'm afraid I can't trust you."
Facing such a urban legend with vast Spiritual Energy and a gentle demeanor, even if she didn't understand, she had to pretend to.
The small bug's face wriggled, and its expression changed from a smile to a comical one, "I do have another method here, but I don't know if you dare to try it."
